A new public artwork has been unveiled in Scarborough, celebrating both the area’s Roman history and abundant marine wildlife.
The large Roman style mosaic depicts animals that can be seen from the Yorkshire coastline, including dolphins, minke whales, seals and Thor the Walrus, a 118-stone male who drew crowds when he visited the town in 2022.
The work, Roman Mosaic c. 2025, will cover the floor of a newly created sea-watching station, which has been renovated with new public telescopes. It completes the Wild Eye coastal art and nature trail, which connects with five other artist commissions from Scarborough to Whitby.
The mosaic is a collaboration between Turner prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, and Sheffield based sculptor and mosaic artist Coralie Turpin. Deller says: “Art is a way of staying in love with the world. It is also a form of magic or a cover version of reality.
“Here in Scarborough, we are creating new ancient work about the sea and the creatures within it which also hints at the possibility of the past being still present, just beneath our feet and perhaps inclines us to think about what traces we will leave behind on the world.”
The other public works that make up the coastal art trail include a sculpture by Ryan Gander that requires snowfall to be completed. However, due to changing weather patterns caused by global warming, the work may never be seen in its complete form.
Other works include an augmented reality piece accessed via QR codes by Shezad Dawood and Daisy Hildyard, which examines the possibility of marine-human hybrids in a future flooded Scarborough, and six sculptures by Emma Smith which act as resting spots for animals and humans. The sculptures highlight how nature is good for human wellbeing and explores the strange fact that around 50% of the human body is made up of other species which support human life such as microorganisms, fungi and bacteria.
The project is a collaboration between Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Scarborough based charity Invisible Dust, which facilitates work between artists and scientists to help audiences engage with urgent environmental issues.
The project’s artistic director, Alice Sharp, told The Art Newspaper: “Artists such as Jeremy Deller enable people to respond by creating their own stories and ideas to shape the future. To change the world we need to relate to a much wider social demographic, and contradict the powerful stories told by our ever more autocratic leaders to make us feel we have no agency.
“Jeremy Deller’s Roman Mosaic c. 2025 acknowledges Scarborough’s history and sense of place whilst pointing towards future ways that we can cohabit our world alongside nature.”
The new mosaic and sea-watching centre will be open to the public from 26 April 2025.
